While looking at watches online last week, I started liking the idea of a bronze watch after looking at the Tudor ones, so I typed in bronze watches to see what else would pull up and wow, I fell in love with this red faced Bell and Ross "Red Diver" watch. It has a square body with a round dial, but it has the richest brightest red face on it while the body sits around it in square splendor. I typed in where I could find this brand, I had seen it online but not at any of the stores I have gone to. It can be found here in Austin in a little boutique store in west Austin in a little strip mall the store is called L Majors. It is almost tucked completely into a corner with Randall's occupying most of the place and a pharmacy covering it from the other side, but it is there.
If I hadn't seen the watch and known that it was comparatively "cheaper" than some of the other watches I have looked at, I would have been a little intimidated to even walk in there. But, Rolex watches are cheap at $6,000-$8,000, if you could find them, so knowing the watch I wanted is listed for $4600, it doesn't seem as bad. The store did not disappoint, they carried Vacheron Constantin, which is one of the holy trinity, the other two being Patek Phillippe, and Audemars Piguet. These are considered the gold standard in watches, even if Rolex has more fame. I asked out of curiosity if I could even think of buying one, but she said they started at $20,000 for the cheapest one. I told the lady "no need to open that case." She said they only make about 15,000 watches a year, by hand, nothing is mass produced.
They did not have the "Red Diver", but they did have its cousin, the "Blue Diver" and the blue was rich and pretty but not as striking as the red color. The lady said she would place a call Monday to see if she could find another red one. This is a watch I would most likely buy, I like variety and I already have a blue and black Watch, well an orange and a gold dial one too, if I could count the Citizen watches, but those run on batteries, so they are not the same.
They also carried the brands Nomos, which looked nice but not in the same category but Wife did like one for Boy, she said. It has the tiffany blue that he is currently obsessed with, but it was $2900. I need to look into the brand more online to see if I like it or not. They also had IWC, which look heavily inspired by the aviation industry. There watches were all labeled "spitfire", Top Gun", "Maverick" and other airplane names, so it was easily evident what they were going for. I did one bronze watch they had, but it had already started to "patina", bronze is affected by the environment and it had lost its shine, for sure. The price was on par with the Bell and Ross and I have seen IWC at other stores, Ben Bridge carries it, I think, but the watch was smaller and lighter so the Bell and Ross seems like the better buy.
I do believe I will be visiting this store more, I liked that it was quiet, we were the only customers there, and it wasn't cluttered with unnecessary stuff. They had two other cases with some pearl necklaces and diamond stuff, but it was mostly watches.
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